Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16 Recap: Elsbeth unmasks a de-cluttering guru

CBS's Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16 saw a very exciting case of a de-cluttering guru, Freya Frostad, who believed in minimalism.

When her husband, Axel, and their partner, Taylor (who were part of the throuple), started to spend more time together, she grew jealous and planned to kill her husband, also to have Taylor all to herself.

While Freya was a decluttering guru, she stored all these decluttered items in a special unit, which ultimately helped the detective unmask Freya and solve the case of the week.

Here is the complete recap of Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16.

Breakdown of Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16: What was the case of the week, and how was it solved?

Elsbeth Season 2 Episode 16 saw a trio—Freya, her husband Axel, and their partner Taylor. Freya was a minimalist who believed that a person only needs 44 things at once to survive. Any other things they have are just emotionally attached to them. She then complained to Axel and Taylor that she felt left out of their relationship and wanted to spend some alone time with Taylor, which is then agreed upon.

Afterward, she gifts Taylor a storage box for her 6th-month anniversary with the couple. Later, Axel and Taylor spend some time in the hot tub, where Axel gifts her a pendant, which makes Freya furious.

At night, she takes some of Axel's hair and the pendant and places it in the hot tub's drain. The next day, Taylor and Freya go to a hotel to spend some time, while Axel enjoys some alone time in the hot tub.

While bathing, he notices the clogged drain, and as he plunges underwater to unclog it, his hair gets trapped inside the second drain, clogging both. This sends an alert to Freya's phone, who has been monitoring Axel's moments through a tub app. After the alert, she sets the soap cleaner on, which plugs the lid on the tub, and Axel is trapped inside. The two return from their hotel visit and find him dead inside the bathtub.

Elsbeth and Detective Edwards are assigned the case, where Freya notices Elsbeth's maximalist approach to life, as she comes in with four tote bags. She advises her to declutter.

Elsbeth and Dr. Cameron discuss the case, and while he believes that Axel died by drowning, the detective points out that finding so much hair in a drain is unusual. Especially for someone like Freya because she is a clean freak and germophobic. What's more unusual is that the DNA suggests that the hair found was only Axel's , when Taylor had also used the tub with him the day before.

Further. Dr. Cameron suggests that the hair sample is a bit old and also has traces of arsenic poisoning. Elsbeth suspects that Freya has something to do with her husband's murder.

Since Freya was so concerned about decluttering Elsbeth, she pretended to need her help in decluttering to find out more about her. While helping the detective get rid of her things, she boasts about decluttering 147 deviled eggs from a West Village carriage house, and Freya figures out the arsenic.

Elsbeth reveals that the West Village family is engaged in the family pest control business, which means they have access to flypaper, an easy medium to soak off arsenic from, which can be used in poisoning attempts. Elsbeth solves the case, and the police take Freya into custody.

Also Read: Can you watch Elsbeth without having watched The Good Wife?

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Edited by Sangeeta Mathew